Greedy Girl : Sweet lemongrass, ginger and sage glazed Ham

"Christmas is coming"

You would think I would have run out of ham recipes by now. Between selling ham recipes and making my own for the blog, I’m wondering what ingredients are left? As usual I let my grocery stores available ingredients guide my path. The moment I saw lemongrass in the store I knew I would use it for ham, and it was a most delicious ham.

Ham is a must have on a Christmas table in Jamaica and this year is no exception. My favorite ham flavor that I’ve done so far is my pineapple rosemary ham. But I’m not gonna lie though, lemongrass and ginger glaze is coming in a close second. The sauce is super subtle, but still so very delicious. I want you to know that this ham was finished in less than three days, I mean completely done. I adore boneless hams for this reason, 100% meat. We always save ham bones for soup and they end up staying in the freezer or years and years with no one using them. So for me, I just skip the bone all together and go boneless.

My oven has been out of commission for the past month, its like these technicians come look at the oven leave your home and forget you exist. So I am this close to just getting all new appliances and being done with it. But I digress, my mom saw me in her kitchen in her oven cooking my ham and asked me what’s the flavor, when she heard lemon grass she said wow, did you take it from my plant? I was like you have a plant? She said yup, two huge bushes, so with that said, it’s now a fact that this will be my Christmas ham. I literally wanted to drink the glaze while it was reducing, Such a good flavor combination, I could imagine adding some water and ice cubes and it being a bomb drink too…the way my mind works lol.

Ingredients (printable recipe)

1 bone in or boneless leg cooked smoked ham

1 cup maple syrup

2 tablespoon brown sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

4 stalks Lemongrass

4 tablespoon fresh Ginger sliced

8-10 sage leaves

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees
Wrap the ham completely in two to three layers of foil
Place in a baking dish half filled with water and warm in the oven 10 minutes per pound for boneless ham and 15 minutes per pound for bone in hams.
I used a 9 lb boneless ham and cooked it in the oven for one and a half hour
In a sauce pan combine the maple syrup, sugar, salt, lemongrass, ginger, sage. Bring to boil
Once it starts to boil turn to very low and allow it to reduce for a few minutes. It should be a light glaze consistency
Once the ham has warmed all the way through, peel away the skin and carve off some of the fat leaving an even layer of fat protecting the meat
Score the layer of fat to create a diamond pattern
Pour the glaze all over the ham place the herbs at the bottom of the pan
Place it back in the oven uncovered at 375 degrees
Continually baste the ham with the glaze, if your oven has hot spots rotate the dish for even cooking
Remove from the oven when the fat scored is dark golden
Allow it to rest for at least 10 minutes then carve and serve

Greedy tips:

Discard the sage and lemongrass, however the ginger will be sweet and candied and can be eaten if you choose to.
Optional: When the ham goes back into the high temp oven to brown it will render fat. If you don’t want the fat to get mixed up with the glaze you can render some of the fat from the ham by roasting it in the oven first. When its brown and caramelized, pour the excess fat from the pan and then pour the sauce on top and serve.